This evening, I went up to North Mesa to take some pictures of Red Mountain. Once you pass the 202 freeway, you leave Mesa, bland American suburb, and you are suddenly in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere out there, the Salt River Indian Reservation begins, but I am not sure where.
As I am driving along looking for a good spot, I suddenly come upon a tiny cemetery, the kind you see in old westerns. Most of the graves were marked with simple white wood slats and are arranged as burial mounds, with stones marking the outline around them and small trinkets on the mound. I can't even begin to describe how beautiful it was in the setting sun, off by itself, on the bank of the dry Salt River bed, with Red Mountain and the Superstitions off in the distance and the lonely 87 highway trailing off in the distance.
I got out to look and sure enough, though there were a few recent burials, but many of the deaths date back a century or more. I don't know the name of it, how long it has been there, or who the people are the still use it (most of the graves, even the old ones, had fresh flowers on them). It seems to be a relic from our pre-suburb days, when Mesa really was a pioneer town. (For those of you not from the Phoenix area, this may need a little explanation. Our city has basically no architectural or cultural history that extends past WWII. It is rare to find a building built earlier than the '70s. And any history we do have was catalogued, packed up and put in museums and tourist attractions for the benefit of the "winter visitors" who come down from the midwest every winter. So, to find an unmolested, authentic link to our past, and not a kitschy simulacrum of it, is pretty amazing).
Needless to say, I burned up all the film I had with and am planning on going back tomorrow when the light is better. Quite an amazing experience.
One final note, for anyone who complains that their life is boring. I spent eight hours today in a cubicle entering H&R Block's year-end financial information into a computer. Most people would consider that a boring day, but it has been a wonderful day and I haven't even thought about that place since I clocked out at 2:30. I refuse to make those eight hours of my day the definition of my existence, they are a means to an end and they only make me work harder to suck the life out of the other 16 hours I am fortunate enough to have. (I don't mean to be preachy, but I've just had a lot of people in my life whining about their life lately, and I was there not too long ago myself, so I just needed to put down those feelings in writing.)
As I am driving along looking for a good spot, I suddenly come upon a tiny cemetery, the kind you see in old westerns. Most of the graves were marked with simple white wood slats and are arranged as burial mounds, with stones marking the outline around them and small trinkets on the mound. I can't even begin to describe how beautiful it was in the setting sun, off by itself, on the bank of the dry Salt River bed, with Red Mountain and the Superstitions off in the distance and the lonely 87 highway trailing off in the distance.
I got out to look and sure enough, though there were a few recent burials, but many of the deaths date back a century or more. I don't know the name of it, how long it has been there, or who the people are the still use it (most of the graves, even the old ones, had fresh flowers on them). It seems to be a relic from our pre-suburb days, when Mesa really was a pioneer town. (For those of you not from the Phoenix area, this may need a little explanation. Our city has basically no architectural or cultural history that extends past WWII. It is rare to find a building built earlier than the '70s. And any history we do have was catalogued, packed up and put in museums and tourist attractions for the benefit of the "winter visitors" who come down from the midwest every winter. So, to find an unmolested, authentic link to our past, and not a kitschy simulacrum of it, is pretty amazing).
Needless to say, I burned up all the film I had with and am planning on going back tomorrow when the light is better. Quite an amazing experience.
One final note, for anyone who complains that their life is boring. I spent eight hours today in a cubicle entering H&R Block's year-end financial information into a computer. Most people would consider that a boring day, but it has been a wonderful day and I haven't even thought about that place since I clocked out at 2:30. I refuse to make those eight hours of my day the definition of my existence, they are a means to an end and they only make me work harder to suck the life out of the other 16 hours I am fortunate enough to have. (I don't mean to be preachy, but I've just had a lot of people in my life whining about their life lately, and I was there not too long ago myself, so I just needed to put down those feelings in writing.)